Michael Boyd

Photo by Lisa Boyd

Michael Boyd is a composer, scholar, and experimental improviser who currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, PA, and holds graduate degrees from the University of Maryland (DMA, composition) and SUNY Stony Brook (MA, music theory). He performs with the Bay Players Experimental Music Collective, a group of composers/performers dedicated to boundary-pushing music created during the second half of the twentieth-century and beyond - in this ensemble, he plays trombone, electric bass, computer, and found objects. An active road and mountain biker, Boyd works on bicycle infrastructure and advocacy issues at Chatham and in his community. He is also an elected member of the Wilkins Township Board of Commissioners. In 2012 he was named Bike Pittsburgh's Advocate of the Year, and in 2013 he was one of the Pittsburgh Magazine/Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Project "40 Under 40" honorees.

Artistic statement:

I believe that every individual possesses significant innate creativity, but, for various reasons, rarely access this valuable personal resource. As a composer, one of my foremost concerns is countering this societal trend by helping individuals connect with and use their inner creativity. One way in which I address this issue is by (re)integrating performers into the creative portion of the music making process through graphic notation which immediately sheds many conventions of Western art music including the primacy of pitch and a roughly one-to-one correspondence between score input and sonic output. In addition to enabling non-specialists and musicians with lesser technical facility to offer viable or “accurate” performances, graphic scores provide greater creative agency to performers essentially resulting in an equal partnership between composer and performer(s). This configuration, paired with my interest in other experimental practices such as the incorporation of visual and theatrical elements, performance-based installation, live electronics and performance art, confronts many musical conventions and thus engages audience members in new ways, often presenting an experience that is both engaging and challenging.

Compositions

Bob's Party

Bob’s Party (2013) is a quartet for performers of any type, most typically (but not limited to) musicians, that focuses on inter-ensemble dynamics. Individuals interpret text and graphic images to create innovative performance gestures, and shape these gestures to reflect the activities of other performers. The pacing of the piece and the resulting global form results from events that occur during performance and each individual’s understand of those events. The total result is a unique, continually evolving sense of ensemble.

the ongoing process

the ongoing process (2011-12) is a work for two live electronics (laptop) composer-performers who employ recordings of their own compositions as the source sound material for a given performance. Responding to a series of network-based graphic images, each performer manipulates and shapes the presentation of their own work while also interfering with and distorting the activities of the other.

This recording features Stephen Lilly and the composer.

invasion/symbiosis (III)

Realization instructions:Create A Gem of an Electro-acoustic work to be played back over two or more channels. Choose a total duration for your finished product. Record sounds in and around your home including, but not limited to, automobile traffic, “nature,” and mushrooms cooking (note that if you do not eat or cook mushrooms, this piece is probably not for you). The number of different sounds recorded should be equal to the number of 15” units in your chosen total duration. Use chance operations of your choice to determine the following: 1) how many times a particular sound source will appear (between 1 and half of the number of 15” units), 2) which 15” sectors will feature these appearances (and which will not), 3) the duration of each appearance (between .5” and 7.5”), 4) the point at which the given sound will initiate within a 15” sector, and 5) whether each individual sound will begin and end with a sudden or gradual envelope (these are separate determinations). Sources should be evenly distributed amongst all available playback channels. Once all determinations are made and the process is fully completed, assemble the piece. Do not modify sounds – accept them as they are (volume may be adjusted slightly). Do not fear silence, even when it lasts for an uncomfortable amount of time.

This work is featured on the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States's Electroacoustic Miniatures 2012: Re-Caged (available online). The recording featured here is a different, slightly longer realization of the work.

cooperation/convolution

cooperation/convolution (2009) recasts the manner in which large instrumental ensembles such as an orchestra are organized. Typically such groups are hierarchically arranged, with a single individual, the conductor, holding the position of greatest importance and select other individuals such as the concertmaster and principal players having secondary, tertiary, etc. levels of authority. In many ways this structure reflects notions of how society should be and is organized, though both in society and hierarchically configured ensembles holding a position that is nearer the bottom of the hierarchy can be alienating. In daily life this organization is realized through variations in salary, education opportunities, housing choices, access to clean water and air, availability of higher quality food, and so forth. While such tangible and significant disparities are not part of ensemble dynamics, the presence of a hierarchical structure in large musical groups reinforces this societal norm. In cooperation/convolution all performers exert equal influence within the ensemble, sonically interpreting graphic images and shaping these interpretations so that they relate in various ways to the activities of certain other performers. Thus the ensemble members are placed into groups of five or six that communicate through a variety of topological systems drawn from computer networking, and these groups interact to create the total ensemble.

This recording is by the Clarke University Wind Ensemble from the 2013 Society of Composers, Inc. Region V Conference.